My sister is in a rehab facility. Any advice in regards to receiving a pension bonus and its impact on Medicaid?
Last year I wrote about my sister being in a rehab facility and she received a pension check. She is still in the facility but has not fully received physical therapy. The facility also received her recent pension check. My siblings and I received a bonus for selling mineral rights that we were heirs to so I have a check for my sister for $30,000. I called an elder lawyer to see if it can be protected and they said no as long as she is on Medicaid it would have to be spent down to $2,000 in order for her to remain eligible.
I cannot do anything with the check as I am not her POA and the facility would not let me be her POA without her being evaluated first. If she is deemed incompetent they would have to go to court to get her a guardianship but I have not heard anything from them about the status of this process.
Has anyone else ever had an issue like this and how was it resolved?
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This money cannot be protected. It is rightfully your Sister's money. She, from all you say, is not adjudged as incompetent. I would not, were I you, seek POA. There are many legal things that must be done if you are POA and you are LEGALLY liable; you must be good at meticulous record keeping and you must deal with a huge number of entities. I would simply stay out of all this mess and visit your sister.
If you are asked to assume POA by your sister (and she can only do this if competent) I would say you are sorry and you cannot. Allow the state to assume guardianship. When they do, hand them over the pension checks,mineral rights checks, and whatever else she has, and let THEM take care of it
As I said, your profile indicates you are, as a family, living all together and trying to negotiate SEVERAL folks with severe mental issues. You have enough. Just visit your sister and love on her, and let the rest of the chips fall where they may.
If she assigns someone, great... but then she needs to go back onto private pay for her facility until the money is spent down. Some of those funds can go towards a pre-paid funeral that Medicaid will allow this "asset". The PoA will need to manage her finances so that when she reapplies for Medicaid she will qualify.
If she is assessed an incapacitated, therefore unable to create a PoA, then someone can pursue guardianship through the courts. Assuming no one would contest the guardianship, then the new guardian can then do what I mentioned above with the money. FYI pursuing guardianship can be very expensive ($10K) so not sure if this can come out the mineral money and be allowed by Medicaid (my *opinion* is that it should, but I'm not a professional). Then there's less to spend down.
Final scenario is that no family member gets PoA or guardianship: then the county will need to become the guardian. Then the country controls everything and family will have little to no say in where she resides, how her money is spent, what medical care she receives. It is not a contentious relationship but the county guardian by law needs to keep all her affairs and information private, even from close family. Upon her passing she will be cremated and a financial report accounting for where her money was spent will be sent to the next nearest living relative. The county will then ask where to send her cremains. This is how it went for my step FIL in our state, MN.
Your sister doesn't seem to have any "needs" on which to spend the inheritance, except the cost of the facility and maybe a pre-paid funeral (which I think Medicaid will allow up to $2500 but this may vary by state). So you will need to consider that you'll go through a lot just for her to get a pre-paid funeral and maybe have a private pay/private room for however many months it takes for her to spend down the money. After all that she'll just be moved back to her Medicaid bed. Not sure there's much of a "win" here for anyone.
Yes, I know that sounds harsh but you have a lot already on your plate with your son who is special needs and dealing with your brother who too has his own issues being bipolar. And you also have a daughter as well, right?
That facility your Sister is in has already had her sign off on legal documents to enable them to become her representative payee (as you described it “retirement redirected” which is great phrase) for her monthly income back in May of last year. So the NH did what was needed so they could get that $ for her Medicaid copay and be in compliance for LTC Medicaid.
Well….. If they were so proactive to be her rep payee back then, they can do whatever now to deal with her inherited 30K in mineral rights.
But imo they know this will not be simple & easy like it was to get her to sign off on rep payee….. & why they are wanting you to deal with it.
If I were you I’d send them a short 1 page certified letter that although you love your Sister dearly, you do not have the time or financial ability to reenter her life at this point in time to become her POA or guardian.
it sounds like you (yeah you & from your purse) will need to hire and pay an attorney to do either paperwork to allow you to become her POA if Sissy is competent and cognitive enough to do a POA; OR you’ll need to hire an atty to have you file for guardianship for Sissy; plus for even more fun in all this, whatever happens (POA or guardianship) that 30K $ to Sissy will take her over the income & assets limits for LTC Medicaid; so Sissy would have to do a “spend down” and then re-apply for Medicaid. All this is time consuming to do with plus involving compliance to Medicaid on every cent. All this will fall on you to do. All this for a mere 30K…. 30k is maybe 2 or 3 months of private pay. Sis cannot easily reimburse you for what you on your own paid the attorney as it looks like gifting; she cannot reimburse for your time as it too looks like gifting. Medicaid tends to take the view that what we do is done out of a sense of familial responsibility and without expectation of compensation. And I think we all readily do what we can for our elders or family. But there are limits. Please realize that And once you are on for being her POA or guardian, it’s on you from that point till forever to deal with any issues with Sissys Medicaid as Medicaid has renewals.
The facility has a Social worker and they have a law firm on retainer. Between those 2 they can do whatever to capture Sissys royalty $ and deal with her Medicaid. It will not be simple or easy, but they can do it in-house.
But the easier path is to move the problem over to you. To move the monkey over to your back. And it’s not a cute, trained little Capuchin monkey! You have a full plate as it is, let the NH deal with all this.